Some words of foreign origin take both the foreign and a regular English plural; as,

Beau, beaux or beaus.Cherub, cherubim or cherubs.

English is full of foreign words. So many, in fact, that a great deal of them shouldn't really be considered "foreign" any longer. Quackenbos lists many Latin words which may be considered so thoroughly incorporated into the English language as to be English. After all, many English words have Latin or Greek roots. The exercises following the above lesson present several challenges. Decide if the following words are plural or singular, then see if you know what its opposite is:

4 Comments:

"Parentheses" is plural; the singular is "parenthesis." The other three words are singular. Without looking in the dictionary, my guess would be to form the plurals of "gymnasium" and "aquarium" by adding an "s." "Effluvium" is so Latin-sounding that I'll guess its plural is "effluvia." I'm not sure of any of these (except "parenthesis/es") without looking in the dictionary.

I, Robert Robus, do not wish to argue with the conclusions of Mr. Ward. However, I do wish to posit "aquaria" as a possible alternate plural for "aquarium." As I, Robert Robus, have not yet consulted a dictionary, of course, I am aware that this could be far askew of good usage.

Contributors

Alexandra is a collector of 19th century textbooks, a former writing teacher, and an English language enthusiast. Craig is a writer and English
major who has been considered a leading storm trooper in the war against bad grammar